Executive resume writing is complicated.
If your resume isn’t doing its job landing you interviews, and you know it doesn’t present you well, it may need an intervention.
Is your resume in such bad shape you can’t deny it any longer?
Are you ashamed to use it, because it doesn’t really say who you are and the value you offer? It just doesn’t represent the real “you”?
Does it lack personality (that is, personal branding), which you think may be important?
If it’s so bad you won’t use it, or if you’re using it and getting little or no response, your resume probably needs help . . . maybe professional help.
Let me qualify this first. If your only job search efforts have been posting your resume to job boards, there may be nothing wrong with your executive resume writing.
When you use job boards and respond to job postings, your resume gets dumped into a database, to be parsed using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), and matched with job openings.
Even the very best branded resume, that clearly differentiates you and the value you offer over your competitors won’t make the cut, if it doesn’t contain the precise matching keywords used to search the database.
Instead, I’m talking about the response you got when your resume was viewed by actual human eyeballs, which means you’ve been job-hunting the best way – networking your way into your target companies.
7 Deadly Sins of Executive Resume Writing
You want your resume to be an interview-generating magnet. Here are some of the reasons your resume may not be getting the kind of response you think it should:
1. No Differentiation From Your Competitors
It may seem counterintuitive, but you don’t want your resume to look and read like those competing against you. You’re not like everyone else, are you?
Resumes are marketing documents designed to “sell” you over others. If your resume mimics everyone else’s, how can you possibly stand out and position your unique promise of value?
On top of that, if your resume is a typical, lifeless, boring document, who’s going to care to read it and spend a little time getting to know you?
A really great resume that’s doing its job will differentiate you and immediately capture the interest of readers. Hiring professionals like recruiters typically allow only about 10 SECONDS for a resume to interest them before they move on to the next one.
If you were ever in the position of reviewing resumes and job candidates, how much consideration did you give to same-old resumes?
2. Functional Format
Recruiters and hiring decision makers generally dislike the functional format.
It sends up a red flag that the candidate is trying to hide something, which is often the case. Don’t start your job search by turning off the people you need to make a good impression on.
A combination hybrid format of functional and chronological works best for executives, in most cases.
This allows you to highlight on the top third or half of the first page (prime resume real estate) your promise of value by bringing forward top achievements that in a strict chronological resume would have landed on the second page.
Following your hard-hitting, brand-focused initial profile (or resume summary), format the remainder chronologically, so readers can clearly see your career progression.
More in my post, Executive Resume Branding: Differentiate Your ROI Value Above the Fold
3. Anemic, Time-Worn Objective Statement
I wasn’t going to include this item because objective statements have been passé for many years, but I still see them on executive resumes.
Objective statements are so yesterday, and waste that valuable above-the-fold space. If you’re still using one, you’re way behind the times with current resume writing best practices.
Employers don’t care so much what you want. They want to know what you will do for them, and what makes you the best hiring choice.
Instead of leading your resume with an objective statement, create a professional headline that does these things:
- Includes the right keywords that your research has shown need to be in your resume, and
- States what kind of position you’re seeking, such as:
Senior Operations Management Executive – Airline Maintenance & Engineering
Predictive Maintenance Expert
Process / Performance Improvement and Transformation using available resources
4. Too Generic and Lacking Targeting
You may think it makes sense to keep yourself open to more opportunities with a general resume that covers a lot of bases. Not so. A resume without a clear target probably won’t hit home at all, with anyone.
Keep in mind, as I always do when I’m writing a client’s resume, that the recruiters and hiring decision makers reading your resume are looking for specific areas of expertise, metrics and personality traits. The better you meet their needs, the better your chances of making the short list of viable candidates.
People assessing executive candidates don’t have the time or inclination to ponder whether you have the goods to deliver in that job. Your resume has to hit them in the face with it. Everything in your resume has to be aligned around how you will meet specific current needs of theirs.
Be willing to put in the time for researching your target employers, so you’ll have the kind of information you need to create a resume that wows.
My personal branding and job search worksheets will help you.
5. Lacking Personal Branding and Chemistry
Companies are looking for candidates who appear to be a good fit, and that includes the personality piece.
That means that generating chemistry in your resume is very important.
Chances are, your resume lacks any sense of what kind of person you are, how you operate and how you get things done.
A VP of Sales client told me that, in his hiring manager role, he had reviewed hundreds of resumes over just the past year. The candidates who got a call back were the ones whose resumes made them come alive on the page and indicated what kind of person they were to work with.
Defining and communicating your personal brand will help you generate chemistry, and can position you among the who’s who in your field and areas of expertise, marking you as the best choice.
6. You Didn’t Show Them the Money
People assessing you want to see clear, monetized evidence that hiring you is a good investment. The key with executive resume writing is to link your brand to your value proposition and ROI, by providing proof of how you tap into your “softer” skills to deliver results that impact bottom line.
If you can’t quantify in dollars your value to past companies, look for other ways to quantify in areas such as time-saving processes, production/performance improvement, etc.
Concisely describing a before-and-after situation can have a powerful impact. What was happening with that particular situation before you stepped in? How fast and how much did things improve once your initiatives took hold?
7. Poor Formatting with Too Much Tightly-Packed Information
Put yourself in the shoes of people reviewing your resume.
They’ll probably be reading it on a very small screen, their phone. Make it easy for them to quickly access and digest what you need them to know about you. Your mission is to provide just enough compelling information to pique their interest and compel them to contact you.
Keep your resume to a reasonable 2-3 page length and create supporting collateral documents (Leadership Initiatives Brief, Career Biography, Reference Dossier, etc.) to provide deeper slices of key contributions and further support your brand. Save some of your supporting documents to distribute once you’re in the interviewing process.
Don’t use more than two different fonts and don’t use underlining. This kind of formatting can be dizzying to readers and turn them off.
Work in plenty of white space by breaking up long chunks of information into no more than about 3-4 lines.
Use bullet points to help break up information and call attention to it.
Remember that your resume is a personal and career marketing document, not merely a career history.
It’s not necessary, nor a good idea, to include every job and every accomplishment you can claim. You typically don’t need to include jobs you held more than 15 or so years ago.
Figuring out how to create a really knock-out executive resume these days can be a challenge. Knowing which strategies work best, what to include, and what to leave out can be daunting.
If all this is too much for you, it may be time to turn over your executive resume writing to a professional.
More About Executive Resume Writing and Job Search
How to Write an Irresistible Executive Resume in 10 Steps